I thought I could, I thought I could

~ bravado makes momentum, until we remember the need for accuracy takes over

Yesterday I proved I can push.

Today I want to prove I can pick up the pace.

Stillness is not always rest. Sometimes it is the most honest work I do.

Sun and cloud trade places daily here in Calgary, and the weather can change (we are back in seasonal norms again for a while) as can our outlook on life or on the current day - we can do it, not at a necessity, but as a self-loving choice.

Yesterday I started early and told myself I could muscle through it. I did, mostly.

But my confidence was not courage, it never is, but competence has needed some help lately with some temporary work-arounds. the kind I build when a new project starts or older ideas/connections finally gel, and I can’t say how it matters, other than to say that it does.

By afternoon, I could feel the cost of pretending I am limitless.

I can still do everything I’ve always done, but I can’t do ‘all of it at once’ as I used to think I could.

I do best when I pick one clear and important next step. I reschedule or discard the others.

Even my “rest” time looks to others like work.

And it is, I think, for all writers …

I stare out a window or at the ceiling, I may be silent or dozing, but I know I'm writing something in my head.

I also tried an experiment: fewer screens, more voices.

Text and email are fast, but they often leave gaps big enough for people to fall into. I do not help by over-explaining, either. I can write a message so long it becomes its own weather system, and the point gets lost in the fog I create.

Conversations do something different; time consuming, of course, but full of jazzing up our spirits.

Tone arrives with words. Hesitation has a place to land. A simple question can replace six paragraphs of “just to be clear.”

I am also learning to name the real category of my ambition: energy, not willpower.

An interesting new work project is taking shape, and it is promising, but it is early.

What am I still promising myself out of habit?

Today, I’m going off-site for the day (the first of many), advancing an important project that will put anxiety behind me, get my-house-in-order - one of many next steps in self-inflicted problem-set … next step, then another.

Maybe I should sell bumper stickers with slogans, because “I thought I could” because it is permission to begin, and a reminder that bravado is nice, but there is always a cost of action, as there is a cost of inaction …